Commentaries

Water Changes Everything

May 13, 2013

Tyler Riewer comes to us from Nebraska, by way of Portland, Oregon. Prior to joining the charity: water team as Content Strategist, he spent nine years in advertising, creating content for brands like Red Bull, Nike and A&E. He loves storytelling and secret clubs. He also takes himself very seriously. Follow Tyler at @TylerRiewer.

It's hard not to think about water today. In the western world, we face growing concerns about our stewardship of the world's most precious resource. There's talk of shortages, evidence of reservoirs and aquifers drying up, and of course, plenty of people who simply don't care.

But forget about us.

Most of us have never really been thirsty. We've never had to leave our houses and walk five miles to collect water. We simply turn on the tap, and water comes out. Clean. Yet there are 800 million people on the planet who don't have clean water.

Can you imagine what 800 million people looks like? Maybe one in nine is easier. One in nine people in our world doesn’t have access to the most basic of human needs. Something we can't imagine going twelve hours without.

For most of these people, water means hard work. Women and children spend hours walking to collect it -- from ponds, rivers and streams. When they bring this unsafe water home, there's rarely enough. They have to make daily choices: Do I use this for drinking? Bathing? Cooking? Washing? There's never enough of it to go around. Worse yet, it's making them sick.

This is the water crisis.

But the good news is that it's entirely solvable!

From water filtration systems to rainwater harvesting systems to drilled or hand-dug wells, we know how to bring clean water to every single person on this planet. And of course, it’s worth doing.

Clean water brings hope to communities and restores the dignity of women and children. A clean water project in a village can add hours each day to their lives. Hours which can be used for studying, spending time with family, or even starting a small business.

In just over six years, charity: water has raised almost $100 million and funded 8,217 water projects in 20 countries. Those projects will provide clean and safe drinking water to more than three million people.

But we’re just getting started. Providing help to three million people is a minor dent in a massive problem, and we’re going to need a lot more awareness and support to get there.